


If I Kiss You Like This

by pintobean82



Series: and you hold me like that [2]
Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-17
Updated: 2019-05-17
Packaged: 2020-03-06 15:35:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18853960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pintobean82/pseuds/pintobean82
Summary: He wants her to know that she’s it for him, that he wants to be with her seriously and forever. And that takes more than a week and a New Years Eve night.





	If I Kiss You Like This

**Author's Note:**

> This part of It's All Coming Back To Me was one of my favorites to write so I thought I would write it from Scott's POV! 
> 
> The title is a lyric from Celine's song It's All Coming Back To Me, a true masterpiece.

He breaks up with Kathy a week before New Years. He doesn’t really mean to do it around the holidays, but leading her on would be worse, right? And it’s not like he can deny they’ve been having problems for a couple months. Not even Kathy would be able to deny that. While she’d been understanding of his close relationship with Tessa at first, it had started to get to her the last month, he could tell. 

Scott has just been trying to be a good friend to Tessa anyways. She’s been having a super stressful few months of training, he knows she’s feeling it mentally and physically, and he wouldn’t be him if he wasn’t there to support her in whatever way she needs. Which rubs Kathy the wrong way.

And he can’t blame her, really he can’t, because he knows how it can look, even if it’s not romantic between them at all. Even if he wants it to be romantic between them.

Which is why he had to break up with Kathy. Because he cannot in good faith be in a relationship with someone when his feelings for Tessa are bubbling so close to the surface. He learned that the hard way in college. He’s never been able to not be attracted to her, that much is a given, but occasionally, he’ll have spurts of time where he can convince himself he’s not in love with her.

It always ends up not working, but a guy can hope.

So he breaks up with Kathy, which makes him single for New Years. And if he works hard to convince Tessa to come to their party because he just wants to spend the night with her, there’s no one to call him out on it except for himself.

He can’t tell Tessa how he feels though, because he just ended his long term relationship and it wouldn’t feel right to him, and maybe not so fair to Tessa, to try to start a relationship with her on the tail end of a different one. He doesn’t want her to think she’s a rebound, or that he just keeps her around for when he doesn’t have a girlfriend. He wants her to know that she’s it for him, that he wants to be with her seriously and forever. And that takes more than a week and a New Years Eve night.

Which is why he allows himself to indulge a little this year. He’s stressed, what with the substitute teaching, tutoring, and the more permanent job search he’s been doing, and the fact that he’s finally accepted that he’s bound to love Tessa for the rest of his life. It’s okay for him to cut loose and get drunk.

But all he can think about as he stands in his kitchen thirty minutes after people start to arrive is where Tessa is, because wherever that is, it’s not here like she’s supposed to be.

“Can you just text her please?” he asks Patrick for what is maybe the fourth time.

Patrick rolls his eyes and hands him another beer. “She’ll get here when she gets here. I’m not texting her.”

Scott takes a sip and winces. He’s twenty-six, he shouldn’t be drinking cheap beer anymore. “Tess is never late,” he argues back. “Something could be wrong.”

Patrick shakes his head. “She also hates New Years.” He starts to walk away, going to bring Liz her drink. “If you’re so concerned text her yourself!” he yells behind him.

He resists the urge to throw his roommate the finger, it wouldn’t matter because Patrick wouldn’t see it anyways. He spends the next thirty minutes talking to a few people Patrick invited from his office and fixing drinks for anyone who starts to filter in. When Tessa still hasn’t arrived, he asks Jeff, Kaitlyn, and Patrick, again, if any of them have heard from her. They haven’t. 

He really hopes she didn’t decide to skip it. But he thinks she would have told him if she had.

Scott has a few more beers and at one point Jeff convinces him to take a shot. Or maybe it’s two. He’s not really keeping track and he doesn’t need to, it’s not like he has anything to do tomorrow.

He tries to distract himself from Tessa’s whereabouts by striking up a conversation with Sam, his and Patrick’s friend from university who just recently moved to London. But the distraction isn’t perfect, as he finds his attention keeps drifting to the doorway of the kitchen, waiting for Tessa to appear.

It also doesn’t help that Sam brings up Tessa ten minutes into their conversation. “So, where’s your girl?”

“My girl?” He thought he mentioned his recent break up.

“Tessa? The one you’re always talking about and obviously waiting for?”

Scott rolls his eyes, even if he can’t stop the smile from spreading across his face at the mention of her name.

“She’s not my girl. And I don’t know where Tessa is, but she said she was coming.”

Sam gives him a scrutinizing look and he thinks she might drop it. He’s wrong. “You guys aren’t dating?” He shakes his head. “But you want to.” That one isn’t a question. Just a straight statement.

He thinks about lying, but what would the point of that be? Sam won’t tell Tessa and it might feel good to admit it, so he nods. She smiles slightly. “Well good luck. You guys seem like you would be good together, from what I hear from Patrick anyways.” He laughs. “So what is she doing these days?”

And this, this he loves to talk about. Everything Tessa is doing and how proud of her he is. “She’s a firefighter for the London Fire Department. Just finished her training this month actually.” He can’t keep the pride out of his voice, wouldn’t want to even if he could.

“Oh wow, that’s incredible. How’d she decide to do that?” she asks him, just as he spots Tessa through the doorway. A smile overtakes his face. She’s so beautiful, wearing jeans and a velvet shirt (it looks so soft and he wants to touch it). Her hair is piled on top of her head in her signature bun, looking both effortlessly messy and elegant. 

“You can ask her yourself!” he says and turns to Tessa. Her own face lights up when she makes eye contact with him. He’ll never get tired of seeing her smile, especially because of him. “Tess!” he says to her. “You’re here!” He takes two quick steps towards her and wraps her in his arms. Her hair smells so good and he breathes her in. “Happy New Year Tessa,” he whispers to her. His lips brush her ear and he thinks he feels her shiver, but his senses are a little fuzzy right now.

“Not quite the new year yet. We’ve still got a couple hours to go,” she says when he sets her back on the ground and takes a step back.

He laughs and grabs one of her hands. Her eyes glitter and her smile grows. “Do you want something to drink?” he asks. “We’ve got a bunch of different stuff.”

She looks like she’s contemplating. Maybe she’s not planning on drinking so she can drive back to her apartment later. He hopes she doesn’t, hopes she stays over so they can have breakfast together tomorrow morning.

“Um… sure. How about one of those fancy cocktails you’re so good at making?” she teases him. He smiles and gives her hand a squeeze before sending her towards Sam, who he briefly forgot was witnessing this whole encounter, and going into the other room to mix her a drink.

Kaitlyn comes up to him just as he’s pouring the rum in the cup. “So Tess finally showed up, huh?” she asks.

He doesn’t look at her because he doesn’t like her tone. “Yes, did you say hi?”

“Nope,” she says, popping the p. “You’ve just got the dopiest smile on your face. Only one person could be the cause of that.”

He turns to glare at her. It must not be very menacing because she starts to laugh. “When are you two going to get over yourselves and start dating?”

He rolls his eyes. “I’m not talking about this right now. Goodbye Kait.” He plops a few ice cubes in the cup and turns around. Kaitlyn’s laughter follows him into the kitchen.

Tess is standing with her back towards him and her shirt still looks so soft. He wants to feel it. He wraps his free arm around her waist and pulls her back a little, so her shoulder blades bump into his chest. He reaches around to hand her the drink, but doesn’t move from where he’s standing. It just feels so nice to be close to her again.

She takes a sip and starts to cough. “Oh my god, how much rum did you put in this?” She turns her head over her shoulder to look at him and it makes him realize how close she really is. Their noses are practically touching and she’s a little blurry since he has to sort of cross his eyes to see her better. Or maybe that’s just the alcohol.

He tells her he didn’t measure the shots, but she shouldn’t worry! New Year’s Eve doesn’t count, she can drink as much as she chooses, that’s the way it works around the holidays. She says something to make him laugh and smiles when she sees it works.

Scott stays behind her the rest of the time they’re in the kitchen, keeping her right in front of him with his arm wrapped around her front. Every once in awhile he flexes his fingers, loving the feeling of her shirt against his skin. It’s like the dip of her waist was made to perfectly fit his hand.

He would feel a little bad, maybe, like he’s hogging all her time or maybe being a little too much with the touching. But she makes no move to get out of his space, even leans back into him as they talk to Sam, and then as more people move into the kitchen. At some point, she even rests her hand on his arm.

He just loves her so much. And it feels so right to be with her like this. If he closes his eyes, he could almost imagine they were a couple, and he would be able to bend down and nuzzle into her hair, or when she turns around to smile at him when someone says something funny, he could kiss her and swallow the sounds of her laugh.

And he’s not dumb. He knows what this looks like to everyone else, this is how you behave with someone you’re romantically involved with. The thing is, it’s hard to tell where Tessa is at sometimes. This is pretty normal behavior for them when they’re both single. Which makes it difficult to tell if this is just normal or if maybe she’s been feeling it too.

He thinks she might be.

Might be ready to be with him. Ready to let go of her fear that they would screw it, and them, up in the process. But he doesn’t want to push her or pressure her, because truly, if they’re only ever friends, he can live with that too. She’s an amazing woman, and he’s so lucky to have her in his life.

Jeff comes into the kitchen and meets Scott’s eyes, gives him a not so subtle, questioning look. He just narrows his eyes in response, which only makes Jeff’s smirk grow.

“Tess! You’ve finally decided to grace us with your presence,” he says, leaning in to give her a kiss on the cheek. Scott has to let go of her so she can give their other friend a hug.

She chuckles. “I’ve been here for awhile, just hanging out in the here. Where have you been?”

“I’ve been socializing with everyone else, not letting Scott monopolize my time,” he says, probably intending to embarrass the both of them. Before either of them can retort though, he continues. “Kaitlyn actually wanted to talk to you though, she’s over on the couch.”

“Does she need flirting help?”

Jeff shrugs. “Probably, but she told me to make it sound urgent.”

Tessa laughs. “Alright then, I’ll see you two later.” She moves to leave, but not before squeezing his bicep, running her hand down his arm, and then squeezing his hand too for good measure.

He has to control the impulse to grab her hand and pull her back into him. It’s easy enough to do though when Jeff starts talking to him about what he’s going to do when Patrick and Liz move out. Maybe he’ll move in with Tessa. Then he could just spend all his time with her.

He should find Tess and tell her that.

Jeff is laughing. “No way. I’m not letting you go tell her that.”

Whoops. Apparently, he’s just speaking his thoughts now.

“Here.” Jeff hands him a beer. “To distract you from running off and being clingy.”

He rolls his eyes, he feels like he’s been doing that a lot tonight, but takes the beer anyways.

Patrick and Liz join them in the kitchen a little while later, and he talks to them and who he thinks might be Liz’s friend or sister. He missed the introduction.

He tries to keep tabs on the time, not wanting to miss midnight, for really one reason only.

He wants to ring in the new year with Tessa, but he hasn’t seen her in at least forty minutes, maybe even an hour. Maybe he could convince her that they should kiss each other at midnight for good luck in the new year. Friends kiss each other all the time for this particular reason and it doesn’t mean anything. (Even is it means everything to him.)

When he’s asleep, sometimes he dreams he can feel the soft press of her lips on his, the way her hands would briefly squeeze his arms before she pulls away. Apparently, a kiss from twelve years ago still haunts him.

He would give anything to get that again. And New Years is the perfect excuse.

But none of that even matters if he can’t find her.

“Hey, have you seen Tess? I see her before it hits midnight.”

Patrick gives him a strange look. “Scott, midnight was like fifteen minutes ago.”

He’s sure his eyes bug out of his head. “What? How’d I miss it?”

Everyone around him just shrugs. What a waste.

He doesn’t even say anything, just unceremoniously parts with their group to go in search of his best friend. She’s sitting on the couch by herself, contentedly watching the people around her when he finds her.

He tries to sit down next to her, but it ends up being more of a drop onto the couch and almost on top of her. Maybe he shouldn’t have had that last beer. The room is starting to spin a little.

“You disappeared on me,” he tells her, trying to sound unfazed, but he thinks it comes out a little whiny.

“Sorry, I had to help talk Kaitlyn up to Chiddy’s friend.” He looks over to the corner of the room and sure enough, there they are. He’ll blame Kaitlyn later for the reason he couldn’t put his amazing plan into action.

Which reminds him of why he came over here in the first place. “I wanted to ring in the new year with you,” he says, as he lays his head on her shoulder. It’s way too heavy to be held up by his body right now. Maybe he should shave his head so this won’t be such a problem in the future.

“Sorry buddy, maybe next year.” And while her voice certainly sounds teasing, he thinks he can hear an undercurrent of remorse, like maybe she wanted to spend midnight with him too. That thought has him pressing his lips to the closest part of her he can reach, which is the velvet shirt over her collar bone. He wonders if her skin would be as soft as the shirt is against his lips.

He hums in agreement. “Next year, and the year after that, and after that, and far, far into the future,” he tells her. He wants her to know that he wants her in his life forever, wants to spend as much time with her as possible, wants her, really.

He means to tell that to her, now seems as good a time as any, but his eyelids are almost as heavy as his head, and they close involuntarily. He feels her run her fingers through his hair and it sends tingles all the way down his spine. Scratch the haircut idea, he’ll take a heavy head any day if she’ll keep doing this.

“Do you want to go lay down Scott?” she asks him. And yes he very much does. He thinks she’ll just scoot over so he can let the rest of his body fall right on the couch. Hopefully she won’t leave though. Maybe he can convince her to stay by his head and keep running her fingers over his scalp.

Instead though, she grabs his hand and pulls him up. He doesn’t want to open his eyes, but also can’t run the risk of running into a table or a person right now. He might topple right over. So he pries his eyes open and let’s her lead them into his bedroom.

He finds his pajamas and starts going through the very difficult process of putting them on. Whose idea was it to have so many holes in shirts?

He hears Tessa behind him and thinks she’s maybe putting on her coat, that she’ll tuck him in and then leave. But when he turns around she’s in his shirt and his sweatpants and is pulling the covers back from his bed. He blinks a few times, did they start dating and she didn’t tell him?

But then he remembers the drinks she had and he doesn’t want her driving home now. He’ll make her breakfast in the morning as a thanks for staying and keeping him company.

They both climb into the bed and face each other. He wishes this was real life, that they did this every night and not only on weird, random occasions. He can imagine it, coming home from work to her reading on the couch, cooking dinner together, falling asleep together,  _ not  _ falling asleep together, waking up early to send her off to the station. It’s a life he wants, one he hopes she could want too.

He’s just so proud of her. She’s so strong and courageous and smart and capable. He thinks he should maybe tell her that, so he does.

She giggles, “Thank you.”

He opens one eye to look at her. She’s gorgeous when she giggles and he doesn’t want to miss it. But looking at her and seeing how happy she is reminds him of how scared he is to lose her. So he tells her that too.

She reaches out to grab his hand and holds on tightly. He loves her hands, they fit perfectly in his. The few years where they tried to be completely normal friends, and he couldn’t reach out to grab her hand when he wanted, were terrible. He’s glad that’s over. Her touch reassures him almost as much as her words.

“I know, but I’m working with a lot of great people who’ve been doing this for a lot of years. I’m in good hands.”

“I know. I still get worried.”

He closes his eyes again when she starts to rub her thumb over his knuckles. It feels so natural to be lying here with her. Her even breaths calm him down and lull him into an almost sleep. It’s never been like that with any of his other girlfriends. Even the slightest noise or movement from them would keep him awake. He wonders if it’s just because she’s so comfortable with him and he’s so comfortable with her.

He scootches on to her pillow, so he can be closer to her. “I broke up with Kathy,” he says. Vaguely, he knows Tessa already knows, but he wants her to know for sure, so she doesn’t feel weird about sleeping so close.

“I know. I’m sorry, that’s really rough.”

He appreciates the sentiment, but really, when it came down to it, it wasn’t a hard choice to make. Sure break ups suck, but if he could potentially end up with her this time around, it’s worth it.

Besides, it wouldn’t have been fair, he didn’t want to make it work anymore and Kathy did. Plus, all the feelings for Tessa were starting to push his feelings for Kathy out of his heart. That wouldn’t have been fair to her either.

He shrugs. “It’s okay. I didn’t think I’d ever feel for her the way she felt about me. Not enough room in my heart.” Might as well be honest.

Tessa tenses up, almost like she’s nervous and he can’t have that. He wants her to be nice and relaxed on her first day of the new year. He lets go of her hand so he can wrap his arm around her waist and pull her a little closer. He rubs his hand across her back, hopes it helps to sooth her.

“Why is there no more room Scott?” she asks quietly. Her voice is basically a whisper and he has to concentrate really hard to hear her. He wants to tell her the truth, honestly, but he doesn’t want to tell her when he’s drunk and half asleep.

“I dunno,” he says, but the words feel thick in his mouth. He’s so tired. “It’s too small probably.” Half truth, too small for anyone else to fit.

Tessa let’s out this huge laugh. He loves her laugh, loves being the reason why she’s laughing. “You have the biggest heart of anyone Scott Moir. That is so not true.”

He chuckles a little, thinks of arguing with her maybe, but that seems like too much work for right now. Instead, he snuggles further into the pillow. He can feel her breath light on his lips. It reminds him of how much he wanted to kiss her earlier, still wants to kiss her really. And it makes him realize that he never actually said it.

So he leans forward, just slightly, intending to kiss her on the cheek. He wants to kiss her for real when he knows she wants to kiss him too. He thinks he gets a little of the corner of her mouth though. “Happy New Year Tess,” he says, or at least, he thinks he tells her this. It’s a little hard to know for sure with how fast he falls asleep after. He can’t even hear if she says it back.  

…

Scott wakes up the next morning, warm and happy and also, a little heavier than last night? Why is his arm so heavy? He can’t even lift it? And it’s more than just his arm. His leg also isn’t working right now. And then he hears a light snoring at his back. Just deep breaths in and out really.

Fuck, if he hooked up with someone he’s never drinking again. Except he’s in his fleece pajama pants and a t-shirt, which he would not have put on if he’d had sex.

He turns his head over his shoulder and is greeted by dark brown hair and a face he could pick out of any crowd. Tessa is plastered to his back, spooning him from behind, her arm thrown over his waist and her legs tangled with his.

Last night comes back to him in short bursts. Her pulling him off the couch, getting into his bed, him kissing her before he feel asleep. Well kissing her on the cheek.

At some point in the night he must have rolled over, and either consciously, or subconsciously, she had wrapped herself around him. The thought makes him smile.

He’s so comfortable and he kind of just wants to lay here with her for the rest of the morning, but he also really needs to pee. And his mouth tastes gross, brushing his teeth would probably be a good idea. And he knows when she wakes up she’s going to be hungry, so he should make them breakfast too.

Lifting her arm with his free hand, he tries to roll out of bed as quietly as possible, so she can sleep longer. He must do something wrong though, because as soon as he moves the upper half of his body, her leg tightens where it sits on top of his thigh and her hand clamps down on his forearm.

“Don’t leave yet,” she mumbles. It’s garbled, so much so that he could almost believe she was just talking in her sleep if he didn’t turn his head and see one of her green eyes staring back at him. The other is still clenched shut, like she doesn’t want to admit she’s awake just yet.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” he says softly, so as to not disturb the quiet in the room. “And I was going to make you breakfast.”

She hums and a small smile stretches across her face. She closes her eye again and lets go of his arm. “No breakfast yet. Just come back here.”

“I think you might regret saying that later, when you’re hangry,” he teases.

She just shakes her head softly in response. He can tell she’s already falling back asleep. “I promise I won’t.”

And well, he’s not going to argue with that. He untangles himself from the rest of her and heads to the bathroom. Quickly, he goes through a morning routine. Toilet, brush teeth, splash some water on his face.

He debates ignoring her request and heading to the kitchen instead of going back to his room, but ultimately decides against it. Besides, if she’s annoyed later, it can just be another thing to tease her for.

Quietly, he slips back into his room and into his bed. He thinks she might be too asleep to notice when he returns, but then she smiles with her eyes still closed and murmurs a soft, “Good.”

He can’t resist pressing a sweet kiss to her forehead. She just looks so cute cuddled up under all the blankets. It makes her smile grow.

“Like before,” she tells him. And he’s not really sure what she means until she shoves at his shoulder and tries to roll him so his back is facing her again.

He pulls her arm tighter around him when she puts it over his waist and she slings her leg back on top of his. He starting to drift off again when he feels her press a kiss to his spine, in between his shoulder blades.

‘Yeah,’ he thinks to himself. ‘This is going to be a good year.’

He falls back asleep with a smile on his face.


End file.
